04.Further Apart, The Closer That We Are.

cw; mentions of kidnapping, depictions of a panic attack (I'll put a star at the when its about to start so that you can skip it if you want

★彡

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─ ✦𝐀𝐒 𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐋𝐖𝐀𝐘𝐒 𝐃𝐎𝐄𝐒, Rain avoids the impending crisis like it’s the plague.

It’s not anything new, really. He’s done so plenty of times in his short and very miserable life, because apparently the entire universe thrives on making him suffer.

Take third year, for example, when he had the misfortune of being kidnapped by a deranged man claiming to be his 'biological father', and then said man proceeded to hold him captive for nearly two weeks. Even so, Rain could hardly remember what happened most of the time. He mostly just remembers walking through Hogsmeade with Achilles and Sunhee by his side one moment, then waking up in a bed at St Mungo’s the next, his mother crying hysterically by his bedside while clutching his limp hand like it was the only thing tethering her to this world.

From that while experience, Rain learnt that the best way to deal with life changing crises is to ignore them completely. Never spoke about it to anyone, not to his mother to confirm whether that man was telling him the truth, because his father is and will forever be Adam Fairchild, not even when his parents sent him to about a million mind healers because, in their words, that experience was bound to scar him in many ways. Rain merely scoffed in the face of such accusations, because he was completely fine. And he’d be damned if he let anyone tell him otherwise.

So, yeah. Rain is absolutely going to ignore this whole thing.

Unless someone decides to do something stupid, like approach him in the middle of Honeydukes when he’s trying to stop Sunhee from buying out the entire shop. And by someone stupid, he means Sirius fucking Black.

“Merlin, kill me now,” he mutters under his breath. Sunhee has a death like grip on his forearm as she stares at the chocolate frogs on display, and she turns to him when she manages to catch the sentence with her sharp ears. Perks of being a musical prodigy who plays about ten different instruments, he supposes.

Sunhee grimaces, and it takes actual effort for Rain not to hit the back of her head for just standing there, doing nothing. He doesn’t think he can deal with this right now, or ever for that matter. “Maybe he’s not coming here. I bet he hasn’t even seen us,” Sunhee, always the optimist, tries consoling, but she is immediately proven wrong because Sirius is looking right at the both of them, an arm loosely wrapped around Peter Pettigrew’s shoulders. Rain’s eyes momentarily flit to Sirius’s lips, and he’s taken back to the Charm’s corridor. “Fuck,” he hisses, a flash of panic stabbing him directly in his chest “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

He starts to drag Sunhee away, but the girl plants her feet firmly on the ground. “What are you doing? I still want to buy some frogs, Rain,” she tells him, giving him a weird look like she can’t quite understand why Rain wants to get away. Rain loves Sunhee, he really does, but he can’t deal with this right now.

“We can come later,” he whispers harshly next to her ear, “preferably when this twat isn’t here.” Rain is decisively avoiding looking at the two boys approaching them, so he doesn’t know how far they are from them.

Sunhee opens her mouth to speak, but she interrupted by a new voice, one that Rain, unfortunately, knows a little too well. “What a pleasant surprise,” Sirius all but shouts—he doesn’t actually shout, Rain is a just paranoid little shit—and Rain is actually shocked that no one in the shop turns to look at them.  “Well, well, well. We meet again, Fairchild.”

Rain closes his eyes, then he counts backwards from ten. He then turns to face Sirius and Peter. Sirius has a shit-eating grin on his face, while Peter looks like he’s struggling so hard not to laugh. “How is this a surprise? I literally saw walking straight towards us like you knew exactly what you were doing.”

Grin never faltering, Sirius tips forward, and his voice drops an octave lower. “Oh, sure. But I wasn’t lying, you know. It’s always a pleasure to see you.”

Rain tries really hard not to think about his conversation with Pandora Lestrange—he finally remembered her name—in the library, but of course, with this stupid all up in his face, speaking to him like that, that conversation is all he can think about at this moment.

Fuck.

He feels all the blood in his body rush to his face, and he frowns in distaste when his stomach starts doing funny things. “Do you only ever spew utter shit?” he says, willing the treacherous feelings away. “You can’t actually be seriously saying that to my face.”

Sirius stands up straight, and his arm slips off Peter’s shoulders. He takes a step forward, and Rain stands firm, because stepping back would mean that Sirius is affecting him in some way, and that would mean that whatever Pandora was saying to him a few days ago is actually true. Rain would rather die than prove her right. Sirius tilts his head to the right, and strands of his black hair fall into his eyes. They look a tiny bit like storm clouds, but that observation hardly means anything.  “Oh, do you think I’m joking, Fairchild?” He frowns, and he has the audacity to actually look like he’s offended. He puts a hand to his chest, looking solemnly into his eyes. “Pete, tell him. Aren’t I always just so incredibly happy to see him?”

Peter is smiling so widely, and he coughs into his fist when Rain turns to glare at him. “Of course, you are, Pads,” he says. “Always over the moon, really. He acts like a dog around his favourite person at times."

The grin slips back onto Sirius’s face so quickly that it nearly gives Rain whiplash, and both he and Peter laugh like they're in on some kind of inside joke. Sirius takes another step forward, and now he’s basically just invading Rain’s personal space, but of course he doesn’t back down. "There you have it,” he announces. “It’s all very mutual though, isn’t it?” Rain doesn’t like his stupid smile, like Sirius knows something he doesn’t. Rain wants to punch it off his face.

Rain can’t tell you what he’s doing with his face right now, but Sirius’s eyes fucking gleam, like he’s enjoying this, and Rain is very sure that he is. “Asking that question a hundred times in different ways each time won’t make me change my answer, Black.”

Then, Sirius does something that makes Rain’s brain completely shut down—probably from anger, if you ask him later. Rain doesn’t actually register what has been done until Sirius’s fingers curl underneath his chin.

Again, he must do something with his face, and it must be stupid if the amused gleam in those brilliant, stormy eyes (Rain can’t actually believe he thinks that) is anything to go by. He feels his heart stop for second, and then it starts up again in a worrying pace. “I’ll get you to say it one day, Rain,” he whispers, and Rain actually feels an onslaught of dizziness attack him from the way his tongue curves around the letters of his name. Rain suddenly can’t breathe. “I promise you that.” The smile on Sirius’s lips sharpens, and Rain’s eyes flicker down there momentarily.

He doesn’t know what happens next, but he suddenly finds himself staring at a blank spot while Sunhee shakes his arm fervently. He looks at her, and he’s sure the shock on her face matches his own. “What the hell was that?”

Rain wishes he could answer her, but even he doesn’t understand what just happened.

“Was Sirius Black flirting with you?” Sunhee finally asks minutes later when they’re walking through the streets of Hogsmeade. “Because I swear that’s what it looked like back there.”

Rain huffs indignantly, and he shoves Sunhee with his shoulders. She lets out a squawk as she stumbles, and Rain swipes the hair tickling his forehead away. “Can you not say such disgusting things when I’m right here?” he says to her.

She shoves him back with twice as much force, and he whips around to glare when he stumbles into some poor soul. “Don’t shove me!” she hisses as she fixes her wind ruffled hair. “And, anyway, you can’t tell me Black wasn’t flirting with you, Rain. I swear I could almost cut through the tension between you two with a knife. It was like… Pettigrew and I weren’t even there!”

“That’s stupid. That fucker wasn’t flirting with me, Sun. He was just trying to rile me up, like he always does.” He’s not even sure who he’s trying to convince at this point. “I will actually kill him if he tries that again.”

Sunhee gives him a look, like she doesn’t believe him. “Well, if riling you up was his goal, then it surely worked in his favour,” she comments, “just…not in the way you think.”

Rain frowns in confusion. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks.

Sunhee smiles, and it’s a wide almost unrestrained thing. “You’re blushing, Rain,” she says. His hands fly up to cup his cheeks in surprise, but he drops them immediately and cringes when he realizes what he’s doing. “Have been since we left Honeydukes.”

Christ, Rain can’t believe this happening to him.

“Oh, sod off, Sunhee,” he grouses, and Sunhee bursts out laughing like the complete traitor that she is.

“Oh–Oh my gods!I can’t believe this!” she stutters in between her peals of laughter. “This is the best day of my life! Sirius Black was flirting with you, and you, the person who claims to hate him the most, actually liked it!”

Rain’s fury overpowers his ability to speak, so he settles for repeatedly hitting Sunhee with his smaller bag of sweets, and most of the people on the same street as them look at them funny. Both of these things do nothing to deter her, because she goes on laughing like Rain encountering his worst enemy is the funniest thing she has seen in her sixteen years.

“Stop laughing, you arse! There’s nothing funny about this!” he laments when he finally finds his voice. "And who said anything about me liking it? That's bullshit."

Sunhee pauses laughing. “No, you don’t understand, Rain. It’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard.” After a momentary pause, she laughs again.

She latches onto him when he tries walking away from her, and he ends up walking all the way to the Three Broomsticks with his insane friend stuck to him like glue.

◈ ━━━━━━━ ⸙▪︎⸙ ━━━━━━━ ◈

At this moment, Rain hates all of his friends. “I fucking hate all of you,” he states. Both Halima and Sunhee are laughing at his misery, and from across the table, Achilles is intently staring at his mug of butterbeer while Mateo looks worringly between all of them like he’s afraid of something exploding. “I hate all of you, except Mateo.”

Halima and Sunhee stop laughing, then they point at each other and start up all over again.

Mateo’s worry further increases at the mention of his name, and although Rain wants to know exactly why, he’s too preoccupied with other things to ask why.

“Um, well. That’s nice and all, but can we talk about something else?” Mateo suggests timidly.

Halima looks at him, a wide smile stretching out her lips. “Something else? What could be more interesting that Rain’s run in with his so called 'worst enemy'?” she asks.

Achilles scoffs under his breath, and lifts his mug to take a long swig of his drink. Mateo’s eyes flit over to him for a second, then he looks back to Halima. “I don’t know. Anything, really. Rain looks like he wants to kill all of us.”

Sunhee rolls her eyes, a smile matching Halima’s on her face. “Nothing new there, Mateo. He always looks like that,” she says.

Mateo nods stiffly. “Right, right” he replies. “But he might actually do it this time?”

Halima chuckles as she reaches over the table to pinch Rain’s left cheek. He pushes her hand out of the way almost immediately, though. “He wouldn’t. Rain loves us all too much, don't you boy?"

Rain scowls at her. “I actually don’t, Halima.” A big fat lie, because he would literally die for all of them. “And Mateo’s right. I might just kill all of you.”

Sunhee pats his arm, a pitying look in her eyes. “Reminding you for the hundredth time, love. Murder’s illegal.”

Rain huffs. “An unfortunate thing, if you ask me,” he grumbles.

“Come to think of it,” Halima starts, “I’ve always had the feeling that this rivalry between you and Black has always been a bit…eh," she makes an indecipherable gesture with her hand. Rain can’t even muster the energy to argue with her, so he just sighs aggravatedly.

“Right? Like, how have we never noticed it before? It’s literally so obvious!” Sunhee exclaims.

Rain’s ears catch a low chuckle from Achilles, and he turns to him. He notices the angry smile on his face, and how the chuckle is so, so bitter that it sours something in his stomach. “I noticed it, alright,” he says to no one in particular. Mateo squeaks, then mutters a quiet ‘Oh, dear’ as he tries to shrink away from Achilles.

Sunhee gasps in mock offense, unaware of the shift in mood. “Did everyone know except for me?” She looks at Mateo. “Did you know?"

Mateo suddenly seems like he wants to be anywhere but here, and he squirms. “Um, well…no, not really. I don’t know," he sputters. 

Rain scowls again, because he feels like he’s missing something very important here.

“What are you on about?” he asks Achilles, ignoring Mateo’s odd behavior for now. “I get that these two are probably joking to get a rise out of me, but I didn’t expect you to be on board with this as well.”

Achilles rolls his eyes, but he says nothing. Halima and Sunhee finally notice that something isn’t quite right, and their smiles slip off their faces.

Rain props his elbows on the table and leans forwards. “No, really, Achilles. What the bloody hell do you mean by that?”

Achilles finally looks up, and there’s a storm swirling in his dark brown eyes that sets Rain on edge. “Let me asks you something,” he starts, his voice dangerously low, “are you actually this oblivious or are you just playing dumb?”

Instinctively, Rain’s eyes narrow to glare at the boy across from him. He hears someone curse softly, but he pays them no mind. No, how could he when he feels like he and Achilles are both teetering on the edge of something they might never come back from? He doesn't particularly care though, because he's sick of this stupid thing. “I actually don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. Maybe I would if you weren’t be so bloody cryptic.”

“No, No. Hey, come on, guys. Don’t be like this,” Sunhee cuts in with a nervous giggle. She gently pushes Rain back into his seat. “No one is fighting anyone. Not today.”

Rain smiles bitterly. “No, I think we should do this today. You know, before Achilles decides to go back to ignoring me."

Neither of them break eye contact, and something between them crackles. “Maybe you are just that dumb,” Achilles replies coldly.

“Maybe you are complete shit at telling people things straight to their faces,” he shoots back without hesitating. “What the hell is your problem, anyway?”

Achilles barks out a laugh, and it nearly startles Rain out of his seat. “What’s my problem? No, what’s your problem?!" He throws his hands up like he’s giving up. “How have you not figured it out yet? How do you not know what's going on right now?"

Fury explodes in Rain’s chest. “How exactly am I supposed to know if you won’t tell me?!” he half-yells. “I’m not a Legillimens, Achilles! I can’t read your fucking mind!”

No one says anything for a while, and the only sounds around them is the chatter of the patrons at the pub.

The silence passes, and Achilles takes a deep, deep breath, and then he runs a frustrated hand down his face. “Fuck,” he whispers. “Fuck!” He slams the same hand on the table, and this, this is what startles Rain. Some kind of noise escapes his throat, a pitiful crossbreed of a gasp and a choked sob.

The sound shocks Achilles, and something like regret washes over his face. He pulls back, and at the same time, Rain’s eyes begin to burn. Achilles stands up, and he walks away without another word.

★

Don’t go, Rain’s heart cries out. Please, please don’t go.  But of course, Achilles doesn’t hear him, because Rain is too choked up to say those words. Even he did manage to speak up, Rain doesn’t think he would stay.

Sunhee slowly turns him to the side, and she quickly gets off her seat to crouch in front of him.

Rain stares wide and teary eyed at the table in silence, because, wow, he's probably lost his best friend an he's just sitting there uselessly instead of going after him. “Hey, hey,” Sunhee whispers to him, rubbing his upper arms to offer comfort. “Rain, I need you to breathe, okay? Please breathe for me, love. You’ll be fine, but I need you to breathe, alright?”

He wonders why she’s asking him to breathe, and it takes him a minute to realize that it’s because he’s hyperventilating. She directs his hand to the centre of her chest and he feels it move underneath his palm. “Just, follow my breathing, okay? Listen to the sound of my voice and try to copy my breathing.”

She inhales deeply, and he follows after her, but he can’t hold it in for long. So they both try, and try again, and she talks him through it until his breathing becomes a little bit more stable.

“That’s it. Can you tell me five things you can see right now?” Sunhee asks him.

He sees the shimmering blue eyeshadow on her eyelids, the silver rings on the fingers of his right hand, that small crack on the floor between the two of them. Sunhee’s clunky leather boots and her dark blue jumper.

“Good. That’s very good, love. Now, can you tell me four things you can feel?”

He feels the palm of Sunhee’s hand over his own, the steady rise and fall of her chest, the faintest bit of cold seeping through his clothes and the feel of his feet against the solid ground.

“You’re doing great, alright? Tell me three things you can hear?”

He hears the chatter of the patrons, the clinking of glass and the gentle tapping of fingers against wood.

“We’re nearly there. Just keep going with me. Two things you can smell?”

Sunhee’s  fruity perfume, the butterbeer on their table.

“Just one more. Tell me one thing you can taste?”

The lingering taste of chocolate on his tongue from the chocolate frog Sunhee stuffed in his mouth so he could let her narrate what went down between him and Sirius in peace. When he thinks of it now, it’s kind of funny, and it startles a quiet laugh out of him.

★

He looks at Sunhee, his vision just a little bit foggy, and he sees her smile. “There you are,” she  says to him softly. “Care to tell me what’s making you laugh?”

He tries smothering his slightly hysterical laughter with his hand, but Sunhee pulls it down before he can get the chance to do so. “Sorry, it’s just…remember the chocolate frog earlier?” he tells her, and her small smile widens

“Well,”